Indian Journal of Animal Research

Dilated cardiomyopathy is the important myocardial disease and one of the most common cause of death in the medium to large size dog breeds worldwide. The disease is characterized by dilatation of cardiac chambers and thinning of walls leads to systolic failure. Mutations in some sarcomere genes leads to cardiomyopathy in humans. Sarcomere is an important multifunctional protein network involved in the signal reception and transduction. Mutations in β-MYH7, MYBPC3 and TCAP genes produce alterations in the morphology of heart (hypertrophy or dilatation).

In this study twenty apparently healthy and twenty five dogs with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) were selected from patients reported or referred to University Veterinary Hospital and Teaching Veterinary Clinical Complex, Mannuthy (2015–2017) based on the clinical examination, radiographic, electrocardiographic, haematobiochemical and echocardiographic studies cardiac disorders (Dilated cardiomyopathy and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) were confirmed.

In the present study we investigated genetic alterations of exon 12 of β-MYH7, 16 of MYBPC3 and 2 of TCAP gene in dogs by polymerase chain reaction -single stranded confirmation of polymorphism (PCR-SSCP). Polymerase chain reactions were analysed using acrylamide gel and samples with different pattern of bands were sequenced. Polymerase chain reaction-SSCP showed different migration of band pattern in the intron 1 of TCAP gene in one sample.